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In The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How
People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School
Press), John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen build on the eight-step
change process from Kotter's 1996 Leading Change
(Harvard Business School Press). The book relies on hundreds of
interviews of senior managers at companies undergoing major change.
Cohen's employer, Deloitte Consulting; did the interviewing.
Kotter analyzed the results. His key finding: People change when
their feelings change, not when their thoughts change.

If you're leading a company
through change, say the authors, make employees feel differently by
appealing to their emotions rather than making them think
differently by appealing to their rational side. In practice, that
means using stories, pictures, roleplaying and personal contact
rather than spreadsheets, mission statements and other analytical,
rational tools. For instance, one company tells how it got its
employees energized to focus on customers by playing a videotape of
an important customer complaining about problems with its products.
Other ideas are equally specific and easy to use, in companies of
any size.

Chaos Reigns

"When you
personally face a business situation with an uncertain outcome, you
imagine, anticipate and prepare for at least three possible
outcomes so that you are not surprised by what actually happens.
You do this: always, frequently, occasionally, rarely." That
is one of 20 questions in a Volatility Leadership Assessment
included in Leading on the Edge of Chaos: The 10 Critical
Elements for Success in Volatile Times (Prentice Hall
Press) by Emmett C. Murphy and Mark A. Murphy. Only after you test
your ability to lead in chaotic times do the bestselling co-authors
of 1997's Leadership IQ (Wiley) recommend tackling the
10-step how-to in this book. The assessment will help you identify
areas you need to work on, while the how-to helps your
chaos-calming skills. To get you started, any answer other than
"always" to the above question means you could stand some
improvement.

Austin, Texas, writer Mark Henricks has covered business and
technology for leading publications since 1981.